


Reap What You Sow

by WhatsMyGrandsonsName



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7569247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatsMyGrandsonsName/pseuds/WhatsMyGrandsonsName
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mercy learns that her actions did in fact save Reyes, but according to Jack Morrison what she brought back is no longer the same man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reap What You Sow

“Experiment 413, Log 12. Subject shows no signs of life after eighth serum injection. Time since cardiac arrest, 24 hours… _neunzehn minuten_.”

Angela tapped the screen to close the log, and yawned unintentionally. The oppressive darkness of the small lab had caused her breathing to slow down, and her body was signalling it needed more oxygen.

Keeping the screen active, she made the final notes to the active experiment, then selected the FAILURE tag and closed the file. Such a shame too; this one had actually got back up at the 10-hour mark for a few minutes. Then its leg had fallen off.

She still couldn’t qualify if the advanced cellular degeneration was a side effect of the serum or of the state that it induced. For lack of a better term, she was calling that state “non-alive”, being that it didn't fit in any classical definition of life or death. She was painfully aware of the poor quality of the name; back in Overwatch, Torbjorn would usually be her naming guru. He had coined the moniker “Valkyrie suit” after recovering from his fit when he heard the name “Healy Jetpack Armour”.

She shook her head, trying to focus her mind back to the present. Self-diagnosis: mild depression caused by mental stress and lack of sunlight.  She activated the screen again and pulled up the external security cams, reasoning that it was high time for a walk in the sunshine.

This wing of the university had been designated as too old for use, but the renovations it supposedly needed kept getting mysteriously delayed. In addition, the architectural drawings had somehow missed her lab, and the power draw was offset by a curiously inefficient HVAC system. Just one of many small projects that had failed to shut down after the Petras Act banned all Overwatch activity.

Satisfied that no-one was outside, Angela stripped off her lab coat and holographic visor and keyed in the exit code. She pulled a leather jacket over her shirt and slipped her pistol inside. Despite having taking the utmost care to make her trip to Helvetica undetectable, there were those out there who had peerless abilities for finding their targets. She used to work with several of them.

Tying her hair into a loose ponytail and taking a small backpack, she checked the security system one last time and exited the lab. Making her way up from the basement, her thoughts drifted back to the failed experiments and the murder victims that had initiated them. Initially, she had barely believed the coroner reports on the victims, but something about the description had triggered a small fear at the back of her mind. Now, her own results were manifesting that fear into reality. And not just fear, but pride – despite all odds, it could actually work! Somehow, she really had brought him back!

The university courtyard was a mash of students and teachers, with no chance to look too closely at anyone in particular. Her own youthful looks and unassuming clothing blended in perfectly with the crowd. Halfway along her seemingly linear path, she ducked down, pulled out a cap from her backpack and struck off in another direction, leaving the pack behind. Ducking through buildings and doubling back in a crazed pattern, she made her way to a tiny secluded courtyard with a single bench. No windows overlooked the area, and the two entrances came from old wooden corridors that even a ninja would have difficulty passing noiselessly through.

She wasn’t a hiding from the authorities, of course. It was highly unlikely the Swiss government were hunting her down. Everyone knew of the heroic humanitarian acts of Dr Angela Ziegler.

This fame wasn’t without its downsides, however – she had recently been contacted by an organisation that she knew was a front for the terrorist group Talon. They couldn’t simply snatch her from the slums of Juba without risking international attention, so she’d maintained her travels through the third world while never getting too far from the safety of the media. But once she’d heard about the corpses and their bizarre state of decay, she had dropped out of the public eye to personally investigate their cause. This had created a huge opportunity for her kidnapping; hence her corresponding level of caution.

Unfortunately, that level wasn’t enough for some.

“Hello, Angela.” A voice issued from directly behind her, and she stiffened instantly. Her hand reached into her coat, but where she had placed her gun there was now just empty space.

“Still carting around this peashooter, hmm?” The throaty baritone could have come from a lifetime of heavy smoking, but in this case it had arisen from a single, terrible incident.

“Jack? Is that you? It’s been too long,” she replied, equal parts surprise and joy in her voice. She still didn’t turn around. “How have you been?”

“I think we can skip pleasantries, Doctor,” the voice said. “I need you to tell me how you did it.”

“How I did what?” she asked, a light frown creasing her smooth forehead.

“Actually, I suppose I should start with _why_. Why did you bring him back?”

The hairs on Angela’s neck rose, but she still kept her voice calm and innocent.

“That’s what you’re here about? Jack, I had no idea this would happen-“

Something jabbed into her back, cutting her off mid-sentence.

“Don’t lie to me, Angela. Not to me. I know exactly what you are.”

Her voice cracked slightly in her response.

“Jack, he was your friend. Reyes was a part of the team, like all of us! I couldn’t just sit by and watch him die!”

“Angela, he was insane. _Insane_. He was going to kill all of you just to make a point! I brought that building down knowing I would breathe my last right alongside him, and that was how it was supposed to be.”

“You had your differences, Jack, but Gabriel was a good man. I refuse to believe that he-“

The gun prodded sharply into her again, causing her to arch her back involuntarily. She should have brought body armour.

“Whatever Reyes used to be, Angela, is not what he was that day.” The voice was quiet now, and sounded as if it was only inches away from her. “The man I knew, the man _we_ knew, he was gone. And whatever he became is what you brought back.”

“How could I have known?” she whispered back. “All I saw in the rubble was your broken _leichen_. What was I supposed to do?”

She had started pronouncing her w’s like v’s – her native language tended to bleed into her speech when she was under pressure.

“You’re lying, Doctor. The signs were pretty damn obvious, even to someone without a med school degree. You knew exactly what was happening, _but you brought him back anyway_.”

“Because that’s what I do!” she shouted, feeling tears prick her eyes. Her voice echoed back from the corridor, mocking her.

The shrubbery rustled, and a figure stepped around to the front of the bench. His face was masked, but she instantly recognised the build of former Strike Commander Jack Morrison. In his hand was her own pistol, levelled steadily at her chest.

“What happened to you, Jack?” she asked softly, staring into the impassive red visor that covered his eyes. “Why are you doing this?”

“I guess he wasn’t the only one who came out of that building unchanged.”

Silence fell. A single tear slid down her cheek. Eventually, she spoke again.

“You’re right.” She wiped her eyes and sighed. “It’s my fault. I couldn’t see… _nein,_ I saw but I ignored it. The opportunity was too great, so I- I injected him. It was just a test, I told myself. And I thought it hadn’t worked, so I left him there for the officials to recover.”

“What did you inject him with.” There was no inflection in the soldier’s voice.

“It was a new compound I was developing, with a prototype nanobot design. They used an enhanced serum vector to re-catalyse cellular activity post-mortem, working to regenerate the body from the peptides up.”

“So it’s what, a revival shot? But the Valkyrie suit already does that.”

“This one was different. The Valkyrie suit nanobots administer emergency defibrillation and block pain receptors – fooling the body into thinking it was still functional, if you like. It works for a short time after cardiac failure, but fails beyond that.

“The new version would systematically restore the body, based on a healthy tissue sample, from a much longer period of ‘death’. My simulations estimated up to 48 hours could pass before decay was too substantial for appropriate regeneration.”

“48 hours?” Jack paused as the implications sank in. “So as long as you recovered the body in that time, you could bring them back.”

“Precisely. Operative deaths in the field would be deaths no longer.”

“Well, it clearly didn’t quite work as intended.”

She sighed. “In practice, the tests never matched simulation results. Often the nanobots caused accelerated decay instead of reversed, and I still can’t figure out why.

“At the time of the incident at HQ, however, I hadn’t progressed to live experiments. I only had my simulation data, with no reason to doubt it. So when I arrived on the scene and found your corpses, I did what I thought was right.”

Another extended pause followed, though this time she met his gaze defiantly instead of pleadingly. Finally, Jack flipped her pistol around and offered to her.

“I thought you might have been contracted by Talon to revive him.”

She took the gun back and stowed it away.

“Talon?” she asked. “Why would they be interested in Gabriel?”

“I have no idea. But those corpses that I assume you went underground to investigate all came from an old Blackwatch program we set up a few years back to track Talon activity. The only ones who knew all their identities were Reyes and I.”

“You haven’t seen him, have you? What’s he like?”

“I caught a glimpse, once.” Jack hesitated for a moment, something she’d never seen before. “He… he wasn’t human anymore, I can say that much.”

Angela excitedly pressed him for more information.

“What do you mean? Was his gait or build changed?”

“There was a body on the ground, and he sort of- I don’t know how to describe it. There was a transfer of some kind, like black smoke, between his hand and the corpse. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s got something to do with what’s making all the scientists scratch their heads.”

She raised a hand to her chin, pondering this development. Jack slowly shook his head.

“You really haven’t changed, Angela. So focused on your goals, you fail to see what’s right in front of you. Things like _basic ethics_.”

She looked up at him sharply. “Excuse me?”

“You’re obsessed, Doc, and now your obsession has created something that none of us understand. _Mercy_ was your callsign, but really it’s the total opposite that drives you, isn’t it? You simply can’t accept that some things should stay dead.”

“And you, Jack, can’t accept that there is more to life than _war_ ,” she hissed. “Death affects more than the individual, it affects their family, their friends, the entire _planet_. It will _always_ be a mercy to save a life, and I will never stop. No matter the cost.”

Morrison turned away, and for the first time she saw the numbers emblazoned on his back.

“Of course you won’t. But like you said, there isn’t much in my life but war, Doc,” he said. “I’m just a soldier, and all soldiers expect to die. Are you going to take that away too?”

She remained silent, staring at the numbers as he walked back in to the corridor.

His harsh words didn’t faze her – it was nothing she hadn’t heard before, whether from her teachers, rivals or teammates. Each time they told her to give up, that she was hurting herself, that she needed to let go, she only grew more resolute in her goals.

Of course she had done live tests before the incident at HQ. She had known that the serum’s effects were completely against what she intended in normal subjects. But she hadn’t been lying when she said she had to try _something_. She couldn’t simply leave their dead corpses, knowing full well that her inaction was responsible for them. And despite those tests, despite what he had become, she knew she had done the right thing with Reyes.

What that thing was, exactly, remained to be seen.

Still, Jack’s insights had been most enlightening. It seemed that she was not done in the dark basement lab just yet.

 


End file.
